


Unnecessary Defense (because we love you)

by SneakyHufflepuff



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Background Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov, Being mean to Matt Lauer, Gen, Talk Shows, Team Fluff, Whimsy, mostly terrible
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-28
Updated: 2013-01-28
Packaged: 2017-11-27 06:01:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/658729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SneakyHufflepuff/pseuds/SneakyHufflepuff
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times someone defended Natasha when she didn't need it, and the one time she did.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unnecessary Defense (because we love you)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CyberMathWitch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CyberMathWitch/gifts).



**1\. Steve and Tony**

“Some have criticized the Black Widow and her role on the Avengers team. She’s a spy, not a superhero. And let’s be honest, fellas, while she looks good in a skintight suit, she doesn’t do much damage with those tiny guns of hers, does she?”

Tony looked at Matt Lauer like he was something the cat dragged in. Steve’s mouth hung open as he processed Lauer’s words.

Storm clouds gathering over his face, Steve began to speak. “The Black Widow is an extremely valuable member of our team. Manhattan would currently be a smoking crater without her.” He looked Lauer in the eye, righteous indignation leaking out of every pore.

“And you, Mr. Stark? Can I call you Tony?” Lauer said, with a grin that didn’t reach his eyes.

“Sure, Matt,” Tony said, with a smile no more real than Lauer’s.

“Your opinion on those people who say the Black Widow is extraneous?” Lauer asked.

“I’ve never heard anyone say that in front of me, or more to the point, in front of her. Usually they’re too busy talking about me.” Tony winked at the audience. “So all I can say to _those people_ is that they’re wrong.” Tony settled back into the overstuffed chair. “Now, who wants to hear about the new Starkphone? I invented it, so of course it’s the best phone in the world, bar none.”

**2\. Pepper**

Pepper tapped away at the keyboard, sighing in exasperation at the hopelessly unorganized personal calendar laid out on her desk.

“Adam,” she called. Adam was her third personal assistant in as many weeks. “Bring me a skim latte.” She turned back to her computer, ignoring the nod from the rat-like personal assistant as he scurried to do her bidding. She was going to need all the caffeine she could consume if she wanted to deal with the tower of papers on her desk and the emails littering her inbox before close of business.

Thirty minutes later Adam reappeared, coffee cup in hand. He set it on her desk. Still scanning her computer screen intently, she took a sip of her coffee. It was cold. And she could taste the full cream milk. She looked up in disbelief. Adam had already retreated to the desk outside the door to flirt with one of the other assistants. She walked to the door of her office and paused, feeling ridiculous for eavesdropping. She was the CEO, goddamnit. She could at least get Tony to make her a robot to do her eavesdropping for her.

“It’s a heroic effort, doing this job. I’ve lasted an entire week,” Adam bragged to the young blonde woman, who was still old enough to know better than to waste her time listening to this soon to be ex-employee. “I swear, it’s impossible to do everything she demands. Rushman must have been a robot to keep the job as long as she did. She was a cold bitch, wasn’t she?”

Pepper stepped out of her office, Louboutins giving her the extra height she used to tower over Adam. “I did twice the work you do, with half the fuss. I was capable of doing this job, as was Natalie Rushman.” Curious, the fake name of the spy slash personal assistant no longer felt bitter on her tongue. “However, capable is the _last_ word I’d use to describe you. Clear out your desk and go.” Pepper turned away, ready to go back to work. She could feel Adam and the young blonde woman staring open mouthed behind her. “And be faster about it than you were with my coffee,” Pepper threw over her shoulder, letting her anger at her ex-assistant show through her controlled veneer.

She should dig out the number Natalie had given her when the spy had left. They could do lunch sometime.

**3\. Bruce**

Natasha, Clint and Bruce were heading through Chinatown to Clint’s favorite hole in the wall restaurant. When a shadow emerged from one of the side streets and grabbed Natasha’s purse all she could do was gape. It was literally all she could do, as S.H.I.E.L.D. agents were forbidden from drawing attention to themselves with random displays of ninja badassery in public. Even to recover their new Yves Saint Laurent purses. Bruce suffered no such restrictions. He chased the thief, jumping over a hapless dog and tackling the burglar to the ground. Natasha and Clint followed, but by the time they got there Bruce was holding the purse triumphantly and the thief had fled.

“Congratulations, buddy,” Clint said. “You didn’t go, you know, green.”

Bruce smiled and handed the purse to Natasha. “It was nothing.”

“My hero,” Natasha told Bruce, putting on a Southern accent and holding a hand to her chest.

Bruce flushed a little and started brushing imaginary dirt from his pants. She could feel Clint pouting without even looking at him.

“Don’t worry, you’ll always be my knight in shining armor,” she said to Clint, swinging her recovered purse happily as the three Avengers continued their walk.

Bruce slowed so he was a step behind the two assassins, watching the interplay between them with interest.

Clint snorted. “Knights were the ones who crippled archers because we made their shiny armor next to useless. I’ll stick to being the smart ass with the bow.”

**4\. Thor**

Natasha dodged her foe’s knife, wincing at it slid through her suit to slice her left side open. She was surrounded by three minions too stupid to know their boss was dead and that they’d lost. Messy cleanups like these made her nostalgic for the Chitauri. The minions leered at her, thinking they’d gained some sort of victory by wounding her, when all they’d done was to make part of her post-mission checkup a tetanus shot. Natasha was tired, sore and pissed off. She showed this unhappiness by headbutting one of the minions in the face and then kicking him in the groin. He went down. She noticed her reflexes were slower than they should have been, and that the world was going blurry. Poison. Slow acting enough that she could finish these clowns before she headed to medical. She swayed on her feet, pulled her knife from her belt and attacked. Before she could finish the minions Thor came out of nowhere, and with two quick hammer strokes dispatched the remaining enemies.

“Thanks for the assist,” she said, her body trembling with the exhaustion of the long battle and the effects of the poison.

“You are not angry that I interfered, Milady?” Thor asked, his expression friendly and hopeful.

“Of course not, Thor.” Natasha smiled through the stinging pain of her side, the warmth in her smile reaching her tired eyes.

He looked around the battlefield, strewn with the rubble and wreckage that seemed to follow the Avengers around like an unfriendly shadow. The Quinjet Natasha had taken to the battle was missing a wing, its sleek body turned into a broken bird.

“We seem to be victorious once again. Would you like me to escort you to the Helicarrier?” Thor asked, eying his teammate with concern.

“Yes. Flying sounds good right now.” Natasha held her hand to her wound, applying pressure.

Thor grinned the little-boy smile that somehow seemed perfectly in place on a god who marked the passing of time in centuries. He grabbed her with one arm, then twirled the hammer expertly with the other and flew towards the Helicarrier, long blonde hair streaming around him. She felt a brief whooshing of air around her as she clung to him, but the flight was over in seconds. She was in medical five minutes later. The doctors made her stay in the hospital overnight. The stay was made bearable when Tony sent her flowers and Clint smuggled in chocolate.

**5\. Fury**

Clint balanced on the edge of the uncomfortable seats in the S.H.I.E.L.D. medcenter waiting room. How could Natasha _do_ that? Act so recklessly, for so little gain? She had jumped into a free-for-all between meta-humans for Christ’s sake. And now he was in an antiseptic-smelling nightmare while she was on an operating table. “Goddamnit, Natasha,” he said aloud. He was going to be so angry once she recovered. He refused to think of any other alternative.

Director Fury spoke from behind him. “Agent Barton.” Clint jumped. Sometimes he forgot just how much of a sneaky bastard Fury was.

“Sir.” Clint rose from his chair, wincing as the sticky plastic seat made a “shhhh-tick” sound as it released him.

“I came here to talk you out of blaming yourself, but it appears you’ve already moved on to blaming Agent Romanoff.”

“No, sir, I-”

“Did I say you could start talking?” Fury asked. Clint shut his mouth. Fury began pacing back and forth, hands clasped behind him. “Good. Agent Romanoff is an expert martial artist. She knew the risks and decided that it was worth it. She made the right call, and neither she nor you are to blame.” Fury paused to look Clint in the eye. “She’ll be in the operating room for at least six more hours. Get some more sleep. That’s an order.” Fury’s voice was quiet thunder.

“Yes, sir,” Clint said meekly, restraining the urge to stand to attention.

 

**6\. And the one time she did need it (Clint)**

Fury slammed the report on the table in front of Clint. Clint was sitting, and Fury was using every inch of his height to loom menacingly.

“I need a better explanation than this,” Fury said, living up to his name with anger radiating from him in waves.

“You said you trust my judgment in the field. That’s my judgment,” Clint said calmly.

“I trust your judgment in deciding how to complete a mission, not your judgment in rejecting one wholesale. What am I supposed to do with you?”

It was a rhetorical question but Clint answered anyway. “You could always fire me,” Clint said, with a cocky smirk. He was the best field agent Fury had and they both knew it.

“The Black Widow is dangerous. A rogue assassin for hire with unmatched skills as a spy. We can’t afford to have her in the equation. You’re the best we have. Go back and take her out.”

“Sir, with all due respect, did you even read the report?”

“Not past the detailed description of the Black Widow’s fighting ability. Were the three paragraphs on the way she kills a man with her thighs really necessary?” Fury’s expression flicked to amusement and back to anger again.

“Yes, absolutely.” Clint had a healthy dose of awe in his voice.

Fury sighed. “You recommend her for recruitment. I agree with your assessment that she’d be a valuable asset, but what makes you think she’d be loyal to us?”

“She’s smart. She knows that spies don’t last long, spies without a team even less. I read the file. At the moment she’s scared, trying to pull a life together with six different half-lives competing for space in her head. She’s survived this long as a Widow without the Red Room. She’s a survivor. All we need to do is convince her that her odds are better here than on her own.” Clint couldn’t quite explain why he thought the Black Widow deserved a second chance, but he trusted his gut. Once he saw her he knew he shouldn’t, couldn’t, pull the trigger.

“And if one day she decides that her odds are better without us?” Fury said, gaze probing into Clint’s.

Clint didn’t smile, but he relaxed minutely. Fury was hooked. The prestige of bringing in the Black Widow was calling to him like a siren song. “Hopefully by then she will have found something here to be loyal to.”

“Very well, Barton. I will approach her with an offer. Don’t pull a stunt like this again.”

“Of course not, sir. Wouldn’t dream of it, sir.”

Both of them knew Barton was lying. Still, it gave Fury something to tell the Council.


End file.
